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Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?

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Cquote1

Agatha: Yesterday you took out a whole army of war clanks!
Gil: That was a small army, this is a big spider!

—Girl Genius
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A little won't hurt a bulb, right..

A little needle won't hurt a bulb, right...?

A seemingly invulnerable character reveals that they are actually deathly afraid of X... therefore, X is certainly going to be a recurring obstacle, no matter how unlikely. The Trope Namer is a line in Raiders of the Lost Ark, reminding us that Indiana Jones hates snakes when he discovers that the Well of Souls is crawling with them.

A subset of Fatal Flaw. Fear of Thunder (also known as brontophobia) and Claustrophobia are specific variations of this. See Also Afraid of Needles (trypanophobia).

This is common is horror/sci-fi stories dealing with a "master of fear" (such as Freddy, Pennywise or the Scarecrow), in which the monster uses his powers to guess his victim's worst fear, and then use it against him/her to make them a quivering heap. Enemies who know about this weakness are prone to use Flaw Exploitation and as a way of coercing the hero.

As you can imagine, Truth in Television. Compare Primal Fear for examples where common phobias are gleefully exploited in horror fiction. No personal examples, please. Not to be confused with Snakes Are Evil, but it helps to explain it some.

Why do there always have to be examples?


Bats (chiroptophobia)[]

Comic Books[]

  • In the Batman comics, the Scarecrow has developed chiroptophobia following years of defeats at the the hands of Batman.

Films — Live Action[]

  • Ace Ventura, as revealed in the second movie, when the sacred animal of the Wachatis turns out to be one.
  • When Alfred asks Bruce Wayne why he uses the bat as his symbol in Batman Begins, Bruce responds, "Bats frighten me. It's time my enemies shared my dread." This fear is also present in his initiation into the League of Shadows, his first encounter with the Scarecrow, and when he first finds the cave and is surrounded by swarming bats.
    • Interestingly, in Batman Forever he specifically says that a vision of bats only scared him at first.
    • In the same movie, The Riddler reacts with absolute terror after being beaten by Batman, going so far as to envision him as the same bat that young Bruce saw flying toward him as a child (a result of having used The Box to map Bruce's mind and learn his Secret Identity).
    • In some versions, Scarecrow himself has a fear of bats owing to his encounters with Batman.

Literature[]

  • Mary Roberts Rinehart's The Bat is about a thief and killer who is only known as "The Bat". He always leaves a bat of some sort at the scene of his crimes. Chiroptophobia begins to affect the city.

Live Action TV[]

  • Mr. Smoketoomuch in Monty Python's Flying Circus gained his odd speech impediment (pronouncing the letter "C" as "B") after being attacked by a bat. No, not a cat—a bat.

Video Games[]

  • Metal Gear: Naked Snake has a fear of bats, and (by extension?) Dracula.
  • Mr. Driller: Ataru is deadly afraid of bats, especially vampires.

Web Animation[]

  • Grif from Red vs. Blue is mortally afraid of bats despite, as Simmons points out, he's wearing power armor and bats couldn't possibly hurt him.
    • Simmons, on the other hands, gets spooked at the mere mention of snakes. Cue pointless arguing.

Western Animation[]

  • Hank Hill from King of the Hill is deathly afraid of bats in one episode, going as far as locking Bobby in the garage with a bat!
  • Panthro from Thundercats.
  • Pinkie Pie might qualify; no less than one episode after singing a whole song about how she laughs at her fears, she freaks out when she mistakes a pair of tickets that landed on her nose for bats, somehow.


Rabbits (leporiphobia)[]

Live Action TV[]

  • Anya from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She dressed up as a bunny for Halloween ("Bunnies frighten me."), sang about bunnies in "Once More, with Feeling!", then was standing on a table when misspoken incantations had filled the Magic Box floor with rabbits of all shapes and sizes, calling it a "cotton-top hell". Somewhat justified, in that a highly traumatic incident involving an unfaithful husband, angry villagers, and rabbits was the catalyst for her becoming a demon in the first place.
  • Bishop Brennan in Father Ted—apparently he was once stuck in a lift in New York with about a hundred rabbits, and "they began nibbling at my cloak and everything". Obviously he is destined to wake up in a room full of rabbits in "The Plague" episode of season 2.
  • Julius is terrified of rabbits on Everybody Hates Chris because he saw a horror movie about them when he and Rochelle were dating. When he takes Drew to a magic show, he passes out when the magician pulls a rabbit out of his hat. Clearly, he saw Night of the Lepus.

Literature[]

Frogs and Toads (batrachophobia)[]

Anime and Manga[]

  • Choutaro Ohtori in the anime version of The Prince of Tennis. Just watch him scream in horror when a cute li'l frog jumps on his face...
  • Kaede Nagase of Mahou Sensei Negima, the Badass Ninja, and easily the most calm of the entire cast seems to only be thrown off by the mere sight of frogs. Any frogs.
  • In the Naruto anime, the first time Sakura sees Naruto summon a toad, she cringes and tells him she can't stand frogs. Great, he had enough trouble getting dates with her already.
  • Sai from Hikaru no Go has expressed a terror of frogs... or at least of a spectacularly ugly man whose smile was frog-like, to the point of distracting Sai from his favorite game.
  • Kanzo Hattori, the blue ninja in Ninja Hattori-kun by Fujiko Fujio (A).
  • Fujiko Mine from Lupin III is afraid of frogs, naturally Lupin teases her from time to time about it, and Zenigata used it against her on one occasion to get information out of her.

Film[]

  • Big Bully Troy from Max Keeble's Big Move is terrified of a giant Barney-like Scottish frog named McGoogles. That's, like, four fears in one.

Live Action TV[]

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"Don't warn the tadpoles!"

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in the second season episode "What's My Line?: Part 1."

    • When Giles asked her about this, Willow admitted, "I...I have frog fear."
  • Madison in Power Rangers Mystic Force. She actually says "Why did it have to be frogs?" when facing a Monster of the Week planning to unleash poisonous tadpoles on the city—though many episodes earlier, she'd been able to overcome this long enough to kiss a helpful frog, turning him into their Sixth Ranger. This fear was carried over from her Magiranger counterpart, Urara.
  • Señor Chang from Community.

Video Games[]

  • Cornet of Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure suffers from this. Unfortunately, frogs are hiding in just about every other container in the Marl Kingdom. Oh, and there's a kingdom of bipedal, sentient frogs.
  • Volgin from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. The phobia is so strong that if you toss a live frog at him during your boss fight with him, he'll stop attacking you to kill the frog, allowing you to get a hit in.
  • Lucca of Chrono Trigger. Becomes awkward when it comes up immediately after they meet with one of the party members, a giant anthropomorphic frog.
  • Refia of Final Fantasy III has a fear of frogs, which makes for a fairly amusing conversation the two times where you have to transform into one to enter a dungeon.

Western Animation[]

  • Tiana seems to be pretty afraid or grossed out by frogs. This, of course, is a bit of a problem.

Bears (arctophobia)[]

Live Action TV[]

  • Stephen Colbert, obviously. It's why he spreads the message that they are soulless, godless, killing machines who are the number one threat to America.
  • Adam of Top Gear US is revealed to be fearful of bears. As his camper in Alaska, he had even built a huge cage with a picture of a lion to keep the bears and moose away.

Western Animation[]

Tropes[]

Birds (ornithophobia)[]

Anime and Manga[]

  • Both Tetsuya Tsurugi from Great Mazinger and Kyouichi Shidou from Idaten Jump were attacked by birds when they were small children, and as a result both guys hate them. Naturally, the omake of the Idaten Jump episode featuring Shido's loathing of birds milked it for what it's worth, with Sho Yamato wearing a big bird outfit in front of an annoyed Shido.
  • Blue from the Pokémon Special manga is afraid of birds for roughly the same reason. She gets over it by confronting Ho-Oh, the Pokémon who kidnapped her, and capturing Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres, also known as the legendary birds. She then sics them on The Mask of Ice.
  • Sengyoku of Houshin Engi is afraid of birds after being stalked by a guy with birds.

Comic Books[]

  • Scarecrow, the Master of Fear and Lord of Despair, is sometimes depicted as having a crippling fear of birds, explained by some writer's description of creative abuse on his grandmother's part. Makes sense—who wouldn't want their alter ego to be the thing that scares the thing that scares them?
  • A Deadpool comic involving him trying to join the X-Men included him continuously pestering Domino to find out what's her greatest fear; turns out it's chickens. While this seems to be a Non Sequitur Scene for most of the arc, at the end where Domino and Wolverine are tracking Deadpool down they have to go through an air vent occupied by a chicken. Domino will probably Never Live It Down that a chicken took her out of action in a fight.

Films — Animated[]

  • In Rango, Rattlesnake Jake is deathly afraid of hawks since they are his natural predator. Rango uses this to his advantage by getting the moles and their bats to ride in formation resembling a hawk. But Rattlesnake Jake figures out the ruse quickly.
  • At the end of A Bug's Life, Big Bad Hopper ended up being eaten alive by birds.
  • The villain of We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story also ended up being eaten alive by birds.

Films — Live Action[]

Literature[]

  • In Stephen King's novel IT, the frightening forms IT takes on, drawn from the personal fears of its victims, include giant birds in several cases, though IT is usually more remembered as a Monster Clown.
    • One character's fear of a giant bird is revealed later in the book to originate from being attacked by a normal-sized bird when an infant. The other does not fear birds per se, but the impossible dimensions of this one in particular, a species that does not and cannot exist in the real world.
  • Also shows up in the Neil Gaiman novel Anansi Boys, although is it an irrational fear when the birds really are out to get you?
  • A minor character from Harry Potter, Mrs. Mason, is terrified of all kinds of birds, so when an owl flies in to warn Harry about using magic.... well, let's just say Uncle Vernon didn't get the big paycheck he wanted. Likewise, Harry gets locked in his room for the remainder of the summer.

Live Action TV[]

  • Guenièvre in the French series Kaamelott is afraid of birds.
  • Hamilton "Ham" Dewey, from the series Saving Grace, is terrified of birds. He becomes agitated at a crime scene when he catches sight of the victim's small pet bird; later in the episode, his friends change his work computer's wallpaper to a close-up image of a baby bird's open mouth, which has him leaping back from the desk when he jiggles the mouse to deactivate the screen saver. His comrades also scatter birdseed in the courtyard just outside the squad room to attract large numbers of wild birds for the express purpose of freaking him out.
  • Sam(antha) on Are You Afraid of the Dark?
  • Hodges in CSI reveals to have this when it came to processing a blue-and-yellow Macaw; he was terrorized by Canadian geese as a child while visiting an uncle in Saskatchewan.
  • Robert from Everybody Loves Raymond is terrified of geese because they chased him when he was a child.

Video Games[]

  • GLaDOS comes to hate them in Portal 2. To be fair, during her stint as a potato, one picked her up against her will, escorted her to its nest and started pecking at her, so she has good reason to be distrustful.
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GLaDOS: AGH! BIRD! BIRD! Kill it! It's evil!

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    • Wheatley also demonstrates a dislike for birds.
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Wheatley: BIRD BIRD BIRD BIRD

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Western Animation[]

  • American Dad: Stan is afraid of seagulls.
  • One episode of Total Drama Island shows that Tyler is deathly afraid of chickens. This has him voted off the island, and on the boat of losers, he sees dozens of chickens and freaks out.

Real Life[]

  • David Boreanaz has a phobia of chickens. It made the Bones episode "The Tough Man In The Tender Chicken" rather interesting behind the scenes.
  • Bea Arthur also had a chicken fear. A Golden Girls scene where Rose brings home a live chicken had to be restaged to make things easier on Bea.

Slugs and Snails (molluscophobia)[]

Anime and Manga[]

  • The heroine of Slayers, Lina Inverse, also known (to herself) as Sorceress Genius and (to anyone else) as Bandit Killer, Dragon Spooker and Enemy Of All Who Live, is terrified unto death by two things: her big sister Luna and slugs. Her sister is also the reason why she fears slugs: Luna was pissed off because Lina decided to sell pictures of her in the bath, and the punishment involve slugs.
  • Genie in Rune Soldier Louie had some very bad experience with giant snails, which leads to Louie giggling immaturely and thinking of Naughty Tentacles.

Video Games[]

Western Animation[]

Other Animals[]

Anime and Manga[]

  • Ferrets: Inori from Fresh Pretty Cure is afraid of ferrets at first, but after switching bodies with Tart (who just happened to be a ferret), she got over it.
    • In one episode, her friend Miki has a fear of octopuses.
  • Kaitou Kid, the titular character of the manga Magic Kaito and an Ensemble Darkhorse character in Detective Conan is afraid of... fish. To the point where only a bomb going off on a boat urges Kaito to scuba dive to find out what happened to his not-girlfriend Aoko and Silver during a chapter in Volume 1.
  • The titular character from Squid Girl is deathly afraid of sharks and killer whales, even inflatable ones (in the beginning, at least). Justified Trope in that she is a squid girl and sharks and killer whales are natural predators to her and since she has no idea what floats are, she assumes that the inflatable ones are real. Of course, she works and lives near a popular beach with lots of children...
  • In Pokémon Special, given how long she's been in the wild, you'd think someone like Sapphire wouldn't exhibit this. However, during the single-elimination tournament at the Battle Frontier, she winds up paired against Tucker and subsequently chokes when he deploys his Salamence (compared to Ruby, who went up against Emerald but threw his fight). Reviewing the R/S arc should give deep insight as to the source of this particular issue. And unlike Blue above, she hasn't had the chance to thwart this issue... yet.
  • Iris from Pokémon Best Wishes has a huge fear of Ice Pokemon similar to Misty and her fear of bugs. The first Pokemon she reacted to do with absolute disgust was Trip's Vanillite, one of the most harmless looking Ice-type Pokemon around. When both Ash and Trip ask her why she's scared of Vanillite, she replies that as a Dragon trainer, she has developed an emotional bond for them including the weakness. Trip calls her out on it though because he says that Dragons are also super effective against each other and should have a fear of Dragons as well. Iris then tells him to shut up and quickly corrects herself by saying she can't stand the cold.
    • Mitsy herself used to be TERRIFIED of Gyarados in general, since as a toddler she wandered near a sleeping one and it accidentally almost swallowed her. She had to work on that in her A Day in the Limelight episode in Pokemon Chronicles, where one of the Cerulean Gym's Magikarps suddenly evolved and was extremely unruly...

Comic Books[]

  • When Aquaman's sidekick Aqualad was introduced he had icthyophobia (fear of fish). Since he was Atlantean, this was a problem.

Films — Live Action[]

  • Quinn, in the obscure horror movie Devils Den, is terrified of squirrels. He would prefer death by mauling by a mountain lion over an encounter with squirrels.

Live Action TV[]

  • Horses: Parker, in Leverage. As a young child, she saw a horse kill a clown. (It was actually a guy in a horse costume.)
  • Grant Imahara of MythBusters is afraid of fish.

Web Comics[]

Western Animation[]

  • Monkeys (maimouphobia) — Ron from Kim Possible. Especially difficult given the recurring monkey-themed super villain Lord Monkey Fist. For further irony, in the episode introducing Monkey Fist, Ron is granted the Mystical Monkey Power the villain sought.
  • Twister from Rocket Power develops a fear of giant monkeys in one episode.
  • Gorillaz singer/keyboardist 2D is deathly afraid of whales. As of current canon he's being held prisoner in a small underwater cell with a whale lurking outside the window.
  • Arthur's sister D.W. is terrified of octopuses.

Real Life[]

  • Read pretty much anything from the Cthulhu Mythos and remember that H.P. Lovecraft was afraid of fish.
  • Kevin Smith is reportedly deathly afraid of sharks (galeophobia). Ironically, Jaws is one of his favorite movies.





Other Things in Nature[]

Anime and Manga[]

  • Astrapophobia, Ceraunophobia, Brontophobia (fear of thunder and lightning) or Tonitrophobia (fear of just thunder): Haruhi from Ouran High School Host Club has this (these) fear(s), after being discovered to be afraid of little else.
  • Himawari on Wandaba Style has a fear of running out of air while in space, which is bad, since she and the other members of Girl Group Mix Juice are trying to get into space to perform a concert on the Moon.

Films — Live Action[]

  • During filming of The Lord of the Rings, Sean Bean was terrified of taking a helicopter to a filming location in the mountains. Enough that he took what to most people would be the far scarier option of climbing the mountain in full costume.

Literature[]

  • Rachel Creed in Pet Sematary suffers from serious necrophobia (fear of death). She can't even handle hearing the concept mentioned in her presence without freaking out.

Live Action TV[]

  • When MythBusters looked at ways flu/cold virii could be spread, Kari Byron confessed to being something of a germophobe. She was the only one not to get "tagged" with Adam's fluorescent fake snot thanks to her previously developed skills at staying away from the ickies.
  • Simon Tam of Firefly is a cosmophobe (afraid of space), as first shown in the episode "Bushwacked."
  • A.J. from The River has speluncaphobia, the fear of caves, thanks to having been in a mining accident.

Video Games[]

  • Earthquakes (seismophobia) — Miles Edgeworth from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. The first major crack we see in Edgeworth's stoic facade is that he turns into an absolute mess at the slightest of tremors. It's no better in Trials and Tribulations, when he passes out after an earthquake hits Hazakurain. It also extends to airplane turbulence (which can resemble tremors) and elevators. Justified Trope in it being the result of a traumatic and tragic incident he experienced as a kid.
  • Jonathan Ingram in Policenauts is a cosmophobe by his own admission, and also appears to show some level of claustrophobia. This clearly doesn't work in his favour when he has to leave the Moon via a material transport relay. Depending on the players' responses to Ed, and how long it takes the player to make the decision to leave, it will extend the action sequence. The first time you beg Jonathan to enter the pod, he will refuse.
  • One of the player characters, Rikku from Final Fantasy X has a phobia of lightning (astraphobia), which she gets over in the sequel.

Web Comics[]


Clowns (coulrophobia)[]

Anime and Manga[]

Comic Books[]

Films — Live Action[]

Literature[]

  • Bobby Pendragon in The Pendragon Adventure.
  • Nita from Young Wizards. Naturally, this comes up shortly before she has to dive into the mind of someone who represents himself using a clown.
  • Nobody likes clowns. According to the Discworld book Making Money, that is the point. Their purpose is not to make you laugh, but to make you realize that however miserable you may be, someone has it worse.
  • The titular monster from IT by Stephen King takes on the appearance of whatever its victims fear. One of IT's most well-known forms is that of a Monster Clown, though this image is not always immediately recognized as evil, and has been used to lure in young children. The clown in question is said to smell of boiled peanuts, cotton candy, animal dung, and rotting dead things.

Live Action TV[]

Music[]

Video Games[]

  • The players of City of Heroes often ask for a Clowns powerset for the Mastermind (pet summoning class based on minion-commanding villains), but are denied because Matt "Positron" Miller, the lead developer, is afraid of clowns.
  • Barry Dejay in Backyard Sports. He plays worse on the Bling-Bling Brothers Circus in Backyard Basketball just because he is afraid of clowns.
  • Nathan Drake from the Uncharted series. At the end of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Elena asks him on a scale of 1 to 10 how scared he was that she would die, he gives it a 3 or 4. Guess what was at 10?

Western Animation[]

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"If you were to die before you sleep... HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!

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  • Tino from The Weekenders had been afraid of clowns for a long time and just so happened to face his fear the week that... 1. The Carnival was in town 2. The pizza place had a clown theme and 3. There were a bunch of clowns around.
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"Mutant clowns from the Hollow Earth! They're real!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!

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  • Dick Daring from The Replacements.
  • Velma Dinkley in What's New, Scooby-Doo? at least. A Monster Clown showing up caused her to swap personalities with Shaggy (who was concentrating on winning a mini golf contest so he went all Velma-esque). They reverted eventually.
  • Chuckie from Rugrats, although they come second to "the guy on the oatmeal box."
  • Caillou's sister Rosie on Caillou, but Caillou helps her to get over it.
  • In an episode of The Fairly OddParents, Timmy admitted to being afraid of clowns.
  • Jack Spicer from Xiaolin Showdown was revealed by one of the big bads to be afraid of clowns, complete with a visual aid. To be fair, they looked like monster clowns.
  • Toaster, from The Brave Little Toaster, for some reason is actually afraid of a Monster Clown firefighter as revealed in a Nightmare Sequence he had about halfway through the film. For his other fear, see above.
  • Creepie from Growing Up Creepie is terrified of clowns. This being the girl that lives with bugs and relaxes in a graveyard.

Real Life[]

  • Lots of people who watched the mini-series IT, where Tim Curry plays a murderous clown, ended up developing fear of clowns. Especially if they saw it as children or teens.
  • Two to one odds that Heath Ledger's interpretation of The Joker in The Dark Knight Saga will be the cause of a lot of clown-based nightmares.
  • Lon Chaney, the "Man of a Thousand Faces" and perhaps the single most iconic horror actor from the silent film era, once made the observation that "Nobody laughs at a clown at midnight."
  • John Wayne Gacy certainly doesn't help make clowns any more reassuring, between his former persona as "Pogo" and his artwork.
  • Daniel Radcliffe has admitted to being scared of clowns.


Women (gynophobia)[]

Anime and Manga[]

  • The male lead from Girls Bravo. Then his so-called rival (?) is terrified of men (arrhenphobia).
  • Yamcha from Dragon Ball. He wanted the Dragon Balls to actually cure this phobia, since he also wanted a girlfriend but was too terrified to ask any girl out. He got over himself after hanging out with Bulma, though.
  • Haine from DOGS: Bullets & Carnage- the only girl he can stand to touch him is Cute Mute Nill.
  • At the beginning of the series, most (if not all) of the male cast of Vandread are scared of women. This is understandable, since one of the main plot points is that men and women have been segregated for years, to the point that neither gender really believes that the other exists anymore. To men, women have become something akin to horrible, frightening monsters of legend.
  • The Haou-Sou in Onidere are all afraid of the opposite sex, with two of them being male.

Comic Books[]

Live Action TV[]

  • Although he's certainly not afraid of women, Jayne from Firefly purportedly "never kisses 'em on the mouth, for fear they'll knock him out with drugged lipstick. This is a valid concern.
    • No, the reason he never kisses women on the mouth is because he only ever sleeps with prostitutes.
  • Raj from The Big Bang Theory, while not afraid of women per se, has a comedic inability to speak to women while sober.
  • Dougal in Father Ted. Father Jack is also terrified of Nuns

Newspaper Comics[]

  • Most six-year-olds have at least some fear and dislike of the opposite gender ("Boys/Girls Have Cooties"), but Calvin and Hobbes takes it to the extreme. Probably the biggest sign of his childish sexism is his club G.R.O.S.S. (Get Rid Of Slimy GirlS).

Video Games[]


Blood (hemophobia)[]

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See also Afraid of Blood

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Anime and Manga[]

  • Tsunade from Naruto, after her lover Dan died and she couldn't do anything about it. Should have been quite a cramp on her superninja-doctor career... until she overcame it during a high-stakes battle at a point of near mortal defeat, thus leading to overcoming her opponent Kabuto as well (this must be a trope somewhere).
    • Also Gaara when Sasuke punctured his chest and saw his own blood for the first time he freaks out.
  • Heart, from Fist of the North Star. Like Ranma, he flips out and becomes a berserker if he sees his own blood.
  • Naga the White Serpent from Slayers is also quite afraid of blood, since she walked on the place where her mother was assassinated, which was all blood-splattered.
    • Made even worse by how she killed the assassin... via using a Razor Floss-like spell, thus splattering the room in even more blood.

Films — Live Action[]

  • In William Castle's The Tingler, the theater owner's mute wife is seen to have an intense fear of blood when Vincent Price cuts his hand on a broken cup - this is exploited later in the movie.
  • In the film The Darwin Awards, this is the reason why Joseph Fiennes's character gets demoted from his job as a detective.

Literature[]

  • Bella from Twilight isn't afraid of hanging around werewolves or vampires, but she faints at the sight of blood... a weakness that suddenly disappears when the plot requires it in Breaking Dawn.
  • You wouldn't expect it from someone with his career choice or hobby, but Dexter expresses considerable unease about blood. Given his Harmful to Minors backstory, can't really blame him.

Live-Action TV[]

  • Doc Martin.
  • Space: Above and Beyond: In an episode where the enemy is using a fear-enhancing weapon, Damphousse is revealed to have a fear of blood. Perhaps a bit ironic for a Marine.
  • Frasier: Niles Crane faints when he even sees a tiny cut on a finger.

Web Comics[]

  • Abel from Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures is hemophobic.
    • We can blame his father for that. Or Kria.
      • Nope, he's had the phobia since he was a kid; it appears to have developed spontaneously. Although those incidents couldn't possibly have helped. (And it's possible that his father did induce it on purpose somehow, but if he did, how and when haven't been revealed.)

Web Original[]

Western Animation[]

  • The Simpsons: One of Doctor Nick's many undoctorlike traits.
  • Codename: Kids Next Door: Numbuh Four is hemophobic, fainting at the mere sight of blood.
  • Chuckie's Dad Chazz from Rugrats faints upon seeing Tommy cut his hand open.
  • In 6teen, Jonesy is afraid of blood ever since a childhood nosebleed incident.


Ghosts (phasmophobia)[]

Anime and Manga[]

  • Having a character who's very scared of ghosts and anything supernatural is often a Running Gag in anime. Double the fun if the character's otherwise unflappable.
  • Hikaru Himuro from Dragon Drive also has that fear. Unfortunately, Chibi is a victim of his fear, as he grabs on to Chibi's tail for some reason (maybe a reflex to help calm himself?), and doesn't let go when he passes out from fear, much to both Chibi and Reiji's annoyances.
  • The Action Girl Ran Mouri of Detective Conan. In her case, it's kinda justified: she fears them not because of the supernatural stuff, but because if she ever was under attack from them, her physical strength would be useless against them.
  • Liz Thompson from Soul Eater is afraid of ghosts. Not helpful when her job/homework requires her to fight them, and odd considering she's something supernatural herself.
    • In contrast, her death god team-mate is afraid of completely mundane things - see 'Various'.
  • In the Naruto anime, when Naruto heard that one his missions has possibility of ghosts being involved, he curled into a ball which odd when didn't back down against the Kyuubi.
  • Jonouchi Katsuya from Yu-Gi-Oh has such an intense fear of the supernatural in general (Ghosts included of course) that he actually passes out twice as a result of them- Once during the manga's version of an Amusement Park of Doom and again before his duel against 'Ghost Kotsuzuka'. He wins the duel after being woken up in the end.
  • Chizuru Yoshida from Kimi ni Todoke.
  • Misaki from Kaichou wa Maid-sama.
  • Both Hazuki and Momoko from Ojamajo Doremi.
  • Skuld from Ah! My Goddess is afraid of ghosts, which is surprising (and funny) considering that she's a goddess.
  • Veronica of Franken Fran is an Artificial Human built for assassination and bodyguard duties. She also recoils in fear at the prospect of ghosts.
  • Cilan from Pokémon Best Wishes has a huge fear of Ghost-type Pokemon. He tends to zigzag around this trope, because while he's not scared of the Ghost Pokemon once it shows itself to be the cause of items moving around, the mere thought of being around them apparently creeps him out. Special mention in BW029 when he freaks out and screams like a girl when the Litwick were controlling the items in the haunted mansion.
  • Mio and Sawako from K-On!

Newspaper Comics[]

  • Popeye has an admitted fear of ghosts. (Or, "Evil spiriks" as he calls them.)

Tabletop Games[]

  • Illithids (mind flayers) in the Dungeons & Dragons setting are terrified of ghosts and undead beings in general, and for good reason. Undead are immune to psionic powers (even intelligent ones) and even undead who have brains can't be hurt by an illithid's extraction ability. This makes an illithid virtually powerless and defenseless against such creatures, thus making undead one of the few types of monsters they fear. Illithids who purposely become undead (called alhoon, or illithiliches) are hated outcasts among their people.

Video Games[]

  • Luigi from the Super Mario Bros. games is deathly afraid of ghosts (and possibly Waddle Dees as shown in Super Smash Bros.. Brawl).
    • Yoshi is afraid of ghost houses. And fortresses. And Big Bad castles. And switch palaces.
  • Yukari Takeba from Persona 3 is also afraid of ghosts.
  • When Roxis was still a freshman during the early parts of Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis, he was, er, traumatized (he was foaming at the mouth!) by Pamela, the school's resident Cute Ghost Girl. Since then, he would have a hard time searching for items anywhere that could possibly be haunted (ranked as Super Hard for him), which, incidentally, are ranked Super Easy for Pamela.
  • Luso from Final Fantasy Tactics A2 revealed his fear of ghosts when the clan must defeat a group of Undead. Adelle teased him afterwords.
  • Youmu Konpaku from Touhou is scared of ghosts—which is ironic, because she just happens to be half-ghost herself, and has a Cute Ghost Girl as a mistress.
  • Tear Grants from Tales of the Abyss is scared of ghosts despite being a Kuudere.
  • Tales of Vesperia: Rita Mordio really hates ghost-ships.
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: Naked Snake is terrified of anything involving the undead. Bats make him think of Dracula, and merely mentioning Dracula is enough to give him nightmares. Because Hideo Kojima loves to screw with his own character's minds, Naked Snake gets to face the ghosts of every person he's ever killed in the game. It's a little unsettling for us, the players, but it's Nightmare Fuel for him.
    • And in Metal Gear Solid 3's sequel, Peace Walker, we get more ghosts in some bonus levels. When Chico, a fan of cryptozoology, starts describing an optional boss as an "undead dinosaur" brought back to life by Haitian zombie-makers, Snake's phobias kick right back in and he starts trying to rationalize it as just an "ordinary" dinosaur that happens to be skeletal and immune to conventional weapons.
  • Ragna the Bloodedge's Joke Ending in BlazBlue Continuum Shift reveals that he is terrified of ghosts. So of course his joke ending turns him and most of the cast into ghosts. It's canon too; he is freaked out by Sena, one of the personalities that make up Platinum the Trinity, when Sena threatens to haunt him for the rest of his life in an attempt to mooch a meal off of Ragna. To top it all off, the true form of the Big Bad Terumi is a creepy grinning green ghost.
  • Princess Pitts in Chibi-Robo! possesses a lady-like terror of monsters and the like. As Chibi-Robo, you can use a Ghost suit to help train her to overcome her fear, though it takes a while and she faints a couple times initially.
  • Ashe Ubert and Lysithea von Ordelia from Fire Emblem: Three Houses are absolutely terrified of ghosts.
  • Ivy from Fire Emblem Engage is so afraid of ghosts that it's mentioned in her ally notebook pages.

Western Animation[]

  • Scooby-Doo: Shaggy and Scooby-Doo.
  • In Inspector Gadget, similar to the Scooby-Doo "Velma too afraid of clowns to solve the case" example above, Penny and Brain are at first too afraid of ghosts to investigate MAD's base (and keep Gadget out of trouble) in "The Haunted Castle. Gadget, who doesn't share this fear, is actually pretty competent (proving he's not always Too Dumb to Live) throughout the whole episode — though, thanks to Gadget actually showing good parenting for once (part of that whole aforementioned "competence" bit), Penny quickly gets over her fear, and does her usual investigations herself. Still, the episode somewhat breaks type by having both Penny and Gadget solving the case.


Darkness (nyctophobia)[]

Anime and Manga[]

  • Neon Genesis Evangelion: Rei Ayanami notes at one point, "Mankind has always feared the darkness, so he scrapes away at its edges with fire."
  • Mametchi from Tamagotchi is afraid of the dark due to an accident when he was young, as revealed in The Movie.

Film[]

  • Toni, the punk-loving sister of Alone in The Dark‍'‍s protagonist is revealed to be afraid of the dark. It is also hinted to be so strong that it forced her to go to a mental institution in the past.

Literature[]

  • Sandry from Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic series is afraid of the dark and always sleeps with a nightlight after being locked in a storeroom. She has a panic attack in the first book when she and her friends are trapped underground during an earthquake.

Live-Action TV[]

  • Are You Afraid of the Dark? Well, are you? Frank is.
  • Doctor Who: But it's not the dark, it's Vashta Nerada. These are microscopic creatures that tend to disguise themselves as shadows. Once you get too near them, you'll be killed instantly. The Doctor tells that these creatures are the reason so many races fear the dark.
  • Criminal Minds: Spencer Reid claims to be afraid of the dark "because of the inherent absence of light."
  • Winston on New Girl.

Video Games[]

  • Alan Wake: Alice has a crippling fear of the dark. And don't tell me you didn't flip on a few lights yourself after/while playing through the game.

Western Animation[]

  • One of Chuckie's top 3 fears on Rugrats.
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Chuckie: This isn't just regular-plain-old scary, Tommy. This is THE DARK!

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Various (tend towards the weird)[]

General[]

Anime and Manga[]

  • In the original Yu-Gi-Oh!, Seto Kaiba has a rather peculiar fear: of Exodia. He has a good reason, of course, seeing as Yugi defeated him rather badly using it in their first duel, and inflicted a Penalty Game after doing so that took Kaiba a while to recover from. (It was not without some malice that Kaiba refused to disqualify the Exodia-using Rare Hunter in Battle City much later, as he was hoping Yugi would be just as scared of facing it.) Later, Kaiba's evil stepfather Gozaburo tried to take advantage of this by using Exodia Necross against him, something he claimed was an even stronger version, but by then, Kaiba had learned not to be so careless, and was able to defeat it using careful strategy. The fact that Gozaburo had almost no strategy other than Necross helped too.
  • In a Yu-Gi-Oh GX 3-parter, it is revealed that vampires scare the crap out of Daitokuji-sensei. Guess who was the Villain of the Week in all 3 episodes? He may have been lying, however. He was secretly a member of the Seven Stars, a group that Camula also belonged to. They were only seen as a group in one brief scene (in shadow), and it is not known if the individual members actually helped each other at all.
  • In the dub (but not original) version of Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal, Shark's sister Rio claims that Shark has a "strange fear of onions", and he really gets upset when she brings it up. One can only guess how it happened.
  • In Soul Eater, Death The Kid's Super OCD seems to mainly manifest as a fear of asymmetry (sometimes it gives him panics attacks and Heroic BSOD, sometimes it acts as a Berserk Button).
  • Celty from Durarara!! is afraid of space aliens for some reason. (Probably because it's adorable). She also develops a fear of police – traffic cops in particular – later in the series.
  • The Rurouni Kenshin animated adaptation gives Sanosuke a crippling fear of trains (which of course pops up in every Filler episode and Non-Serial Movie that involves riding a train); he also expresses a suspicion of cameras, fearing that it'll steal his soul.
  • Miyuki Takara of Lucky Star really hates dentists, but is kinda Truth in Television since we ALL do.
  • Goku from Dragon Ball Z is terrified of needles, this came after he got a shot after his first fight with Vegeta. Sorta justified: he had never gotten a shot in his life until then.
  • In Axis Powers Hetalia, Austria totally loathes any sea creatures.
    • Also, Seychelles hates the cold to the point of collapsing in Cuba's arms after walking in the snow for a while, despite wearing a huge coat. Justified Trope due to the very warm Seychellois climate.

Comic Books[]

  • The Earth-2 Batman suffered an attack from the Scarecrow which caused him to hallucinate his greatest fear. It was fear of being alone, and he hallucinated his friends vanishing before his eyes.
  • In his Brazilian Comic book stories, Jose Carioca is so lazy that he's often depicted as having an outright phobia of work. That would maybe be "tripaliophobia".
  • In Empowered, the villain Rum, Sodomy and the Lash is scared off by a fabric store. Apparently it brings up bad childhood memories.
  • In Geoff Johns' Teen Titans, Superboy and Beast Boy have a phobia of doctors, due to both of them being experimented on as kids. Beast Boy in particular has a special hatred for needles.
  • In a Batman/Judge Dredd crossover graphic novel, Judge Death was subjected to Scarecrow's fear-inducing gas, and hallucinated being mobbed by (shudder) cuddly stuffed animals and cartoon ponies.
  • Lucy from Peanuts, in her role as a nickel psychiatrist, once diagnosed Charlie Brown as having pantophobia, "the fear of everything". He fervently agreed. This gag was repeated in A Charlie Brown Christmas.
  • Zatanna has a phobia regarding puppets. It turns out, there is a very good reason for this phobia.
  • Superboy-Prime, despite being an over-the-top Villain Sue, is deathly afraid of Bart Allen ever since the latter trapped him in the Speed Force during Infinite Crisis.
  • Heatwave has cryophobia, fear of the cold.

Fan Works[]

  • In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic Progress, Princess Luna ends up mortified of baseballs after getting hit in the face by every last foul ball in a baseball game due to a spell gone hilariously wrong. Some time later, she watched Cupcakes[1] on TV, and becomes terrified of all things pink as well. Though she manages to get over that one in time to hang with Pinkie Pie later.
  • Similar to the above, Delilah from The Legend of Spyro Trilogy fanfic The Legend of Spyro: A New Dawn is deathly afraid of cupcakes after the "Cupcakes Incident", which apparently involved a run in with the Cupcakes version of Pinkie Pie (Delilah is a Dimensional Traveller). Though it doesn't come up in that fanfic, since cupcakes don't exist in the universe it takes place in, a letter she gets from Pinkie Pie (the real one, who she's best friends with) tells her to call ahead before she visits so her friends won't have them at a surprise party due to her phobia.
  • Rarity's character arc in the Pony POV Series involves getting over the phobia of gems she'd gotten from Discord's Mind Rape of her. Many other ponies throughout Equestria got similar phobias as a result of their own Mind Rapes, including Prince Blueblood being terrified of the sun, Big Macintosh is terrified of the family dog, Sweetie Belle is scared of her dolls, etc.
    • The One and Only Trixie is revealed to have a crippling fear of Ursas after the Ursa Minor incident in Ponyville. This, rather embarrassingly, rears its head when they encounter two cute, teddybear-sized ones who'd be "fixed" by Princess Gaia's Reality Warping. It scares her so badly that it takes Pinkie Pie singing her a rendition of "Giggle At The Ghosties" to calm her down. Understandably, the others don't laugh or mock her about it, as they know and understand why it scares her so badly.

Film[]

  • In Australian horror film Primal, one of the protagonists is revealed to be claustrophobic early in the film, when her friends find a tunnel through a mountain to the other side, where they're headed to see some ancient cave paintings. She has to drive the long way around after she gets a panic attack from entering. Later, the tunnel becomes the only viable way to escape the monsters, as the car's wheels are destroyed and the monsters won't go near the tunnel.
  • Sid Phillips, the main villain of Toy Story, actually gained a fear of toys at the end of the film as a result of a particular cowboy doll coming to life right in front of him.
  • In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Loki seems to have developed a fear of... the Hulk. Of course, you'd have to be insane not to be afraid of the Hulk, but Loki's fear - stemming from the beating he took from the guy in The Avengers - makes him nervous even when the Hulk isn't angry.

Literature[]

Live Action TV[]

  • Beards (pogonophobia) — Frank, from The Adventures of Lano and Woodley. And of course everyone he runs into throughout the episode in question has a beard. It's cured at the end, though.
  • Noise—Leonard Hatred in Look Around You, invented "Psilence", a type of liquid skin that blocks the ears, as a response to being subjected to loud noises all his life. (Unfortunately the mental instability caused by his condition ultimately led him to attack Sir Prince Charles at an award ceremony.)
  • Tommy from Big Wolf on Campus is afraid of ending up alone due to people finding out about his lycanthropy. And Merton is scared of monster movies (which is kind of weird, because he's a Goth).
  • Balloons (globophobia) — Lacey and Davis in an episode of Corner Gas. Also, by the end of that episode we find out that Brent seems to have a fear of globes.
    • Don't forget Wanda's implied agoraphobia (fear of open space). It's especially ironic as she lives in Saskatchewan, which has nothing but open space.
  • As revealed on Attack of the Show!, co-host Olivia Munn is also afraid of balloons. Needless to say, fellow co-host Kevin Pereira takes so much delight in tormenting her whenever the subject comes up.
  • Embarrassment: Richard Hammond. "I have several recurring nightmares. One in which I am presenting a radio show and can't work the desk, another in which I find myself on stage with a truly catastrophic band. I am only waiting now for Top Gear to make me run naked through a shopping centre on a Saturday and I will have completed the set."
  • On Home Improvement Tim's neighbor Wilson reveals his biggest fear is that all of reality is actually a dream, and when the dreamer wakes up, he'll cease to exist.
  • Alfredo Aldarisio from Pushing Daisies was terrified of the possibility that the Earth's atmosphere would one day be sucked away into space, leaving them all to suffocate.
    • Olive mentions the same fear, leading him to believe that he had found someone he could relate to. Sadly, she was being metaphorical.
  • A M*A*S*H episode has Hawkeye and Margaret simultaneously confronted by (and trying to help each other get through) their greatest respective fears, Claustrophobia and loud noises.
  • In the original Mission Impossible, Cinnamon was claustrophobic. There's a delicious arc in which the bad guys trick her into trying to escape through a narrow pipe, then lock her in the middle.
  • Monk is afraid of many things; among the weirdest of these is milk.
    • His ex-assistant Sharona has a phobia of elephants.
  • Ben Wyatt of Parks and Recreation appears to have policophobia:
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Ben: I'm not afraid of cops. I have no reason to be, I never break any laws ever... because I'm deathly afraid of cops.

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Video Games[]

  • Porcelain (porcophobia?) — Guybrush Threepwood. Speculated to have been caused by being hit over the head with a porcelain vase in the first game.
    • The developers have said they added this just as a gag. After all, who the heck is scared of porcelain?
      • Guybrush Threepwood.
        • Referenced in Tales of Monkey Island Episode 1: Launch Of The Screaming Narwhal, when you have to pick up a porcelain action figure. Guybrush grits his teeth and reassures himself "Calm down, Guybrush, it's only a little porcelain..."
  • Again Emma Emmerich shows up on this list: she doesn't like sea lice at all.
    • And we also have Big Boss himself, scared of vampires and zombies. This is a subversion in terms of the 'recurring obstacle' trope - vampires are in the series (in a form, anyway), but Big Boss never encounters one.
  • Bald people: May of Guilty Gear has an extreme fear of bald men, and can even sense when someone is bald, as shown during the Story Mode in XX when she runs into Dr. Faust (who, under the paper bag, is bald).
  • Umineko no Naku Koro ni: Battler Ushiromiya is terrified of any vehicle that shakes when it moves, as was his late mother Asumu.
  • Flora, Layton's ward in the Professor Layton games, is afraid of being left alone (monophobia).
  • Artix, normally fearless paladin extraordinaire in Adventure Quest Worlds, is utterly terrified of the color pink (which Beleen mercilessly teases him about).
  • Florina from Fire Emblem 7 isn't only afraid of insects, but is terrified by bows (Justified, because as a flying unit, she is vulnerable to them) and suffers from a mild case of androphobia.
  • World of Warcraft; in the Battle for Azeroth expansion, when a Horde player first sets foot in Drustvar (possibly the place in the expansion with the most Nightmare Fuel) he has two allies, Eitrigg and Gallywick. When it becomes clear that a group of goblin scouts were tortured to death by the witch coven, Eitrigg seems nervous to face such foes. While Gallywick at first finds it hilarious that the "big, strong orc is scared of witches", even he starts to get jittery when they actually appear.

Web Comics[]

  • Hats: Trel from Cwen's Quest has either violent fits of terror or near psychotic reactions to hats due to childhood trauma.
  • Riff from Sluggy Freelance is afraid of orphans, and won't go near an orphanage without a missile launcher handy.
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Riff: Haven't you seen "Annie"? They could break out in song and swarm any minute.

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Riff also will end up in Torg's arms if somebody mentions the DMV.
  • Xenophobia: Insecticomics Dreadmoon. Due to the humorous nature of the comic it's more a strong disgust than outright fear; in Wayward's more serious fan fiction he's uncomfortable around non-Cybertronians and outright terrified of organics.
  • PeeJee in Something*Positive has been shown to have an almost pathological fear of puppets.
  • Bob of Bob and George is spectacularly phobic of Pokémon. For no adequately explained reason. We'll state this again: a character with fire superpowers who intermittently seeks to conquer anything he doesn't destroy is terrified of Rattata.
  • In Sequential Art, the squirrel girls (except Scarlet) are agoraphobes. To prevent their escapes.
  • Katia of Prequel is deathly scared of nobility, including having a nightmare of Uriel Septim as a Humanoid Abomination (while in-universe he's the Big Good) and being rendered speechless at the sight of Martin Septim (at that time merely a priest in Kvatch).

Western Animation[]

  • The Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy episode "This Won't Hurt An Ed" reveals that Kevin has Belonephobia (fear of needles). Eddy uses that to his advantage.
  • In Teen Titans, a villain named Dr Light developed a severe phobia. A fear of Raven.
    • Gnarrk, a Neanderthal, was exposed to the modern world. This left him with a severe technophobia (fear of technology) which remained with him until his meeting with the Teen Titans.
  • The Total Drama Island episode "Phobia Factor" delved into the phobias of every cast member. Even tough guy Duncan revealed his secret fear: cardboard cutouts of Celine Dion.
  • In The Replacements, Agent K suffers from crippling stage fright.
  • Chuckie of Rugrats is anxious about many things; his fears include clowns, bunnies, green jello, shoes, and the guy on the oatmeal box.
  • Homer Simpson is shown to have a crippling fear of sock puppets in the episode "Fear of Flying".
  • The titular character on Jimmy Two-Shoes is afraid of pickles.
  • In Metalocalypse, Toki is afraid of bicentennial quarters.
  • Moral Orel has Clay's mother fearing for the word "dead", including the words with the -ded suffix.
  • Lydia's father in the Beetlejuice cartoon is afraid of...well, pretty much everything.
  • In The Rescuers, the extremely superstitious Bernard is afraid of the number 13. He's also afraid of flying.
  • In Transformers Prime, all the robots, but particularly Bulkhead, are afraid of scraplets, whipping out their weapons at the sight of one. But considering they're essentially the robot equivalent of flying piranha, it's not an irrational fear.
  • Robot Chicken brings us a child who is an obvious parody of Indiana Jones (complete with whip and boulder chase sequence), who harbors a hatred of milkshakes.
  • Tantor from The Legend of Tarzan has pantophobia ("fear of everything").
  • In the same episode of King of the Hill that showed Hank's fear of bats, Bill was claimed to have a fear of balloons.
    • Dale Gribble is afraid of ventriloquist dummies, due to his father scaring him with one as a child.
  • In Futurama, Bender reveals that he's afraid of can openers, claiming that one killed his father. This fear proves to be justified when a can opener almost leaves him permanently paralyzed.
  • In an episode of Popples, Billy says he is afraid of the dentist.
  • The Fairly OddParents: In addition to clowns, Timmy Turner is creeped out by bare feet. Which he may have developed from rubbing his grandma's feet.
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It burns!

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Real Life[]

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Jesse: Eggs?

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    • In a magazine from years ago, this troper recalls Hilary Duff stating her fear (or strong disgust) of eggs, and this troper isn't crazy about them either.
  • On a related note, director Werner Herzog is afraid of chickens.
  • Stephen King is afraid of the number 13, a condition known as Triskaidekaphobia.
    • Composer Arnold Schönberg similarly was afraid of the number. His greatest fear was reportedly dying on an age that added up or multiplied to 13. Which he did, at age 76 (7+6=13) on Friday the 13th - perhaps because he feared it that much.
      • It's funny he didn't die at age 67.
    • French composer Jules Massenet shared their fear as well. Made weirder and arguably funnier by how the letters in his name are... thirteen.
  • Pamela Anderson probably has the above beat. She is reportedly a sufferer of eisoptrophobia—in other words, she is freaked out by her own reflection.
  • From a Tumblr blog:
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Q: What is the phobia of chainsaws called?
A: Common sense.

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  1. ↑ An infamous Dark Fic about Pinkie Pie brutally torturing, murdering and baking Rainbow Dash
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